Categorize comments in word

Question

I work with extremely large documents. Tons of comments.

I am looking to categorize comments in Word.

Can you apply labels to comments?

Example: I am creating a comment and would like to categorize it to “sales”, same for “marketing”, etc. Then I can consolidate all comments based on category.

If not, is there a workaround? Begin or end a comment with some sort of delimiter?

Answer 1

Dear AdamQV,

Greetings! Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

Per your description, you want to apply labels to comments in Word.

As far as we know, we're sorry and we're afraid there is no built-in feature in Word to assign labels or categories to comments.

We do understand the inconvenience caused and apologize for it.

If you are willing, you may add prefixes or tags to the comment text to indicate categories.

For instance, you can start each comment with a specific keyword or label, such as "Label1: Comment text". This way, you can visually identify the category or label associated with each comment.

When you want to search for all comments associated with a specific prefix, you may use Advanced Find(Home>Find>Advanced Find), enter the prefix, then choose Find in: Comments, it will highlight all related comments.

On one hand, personally, I could understand your concern and agree with you, it would be definitely ideal and much more convenient if we can apply labels to comments. Thank you for bringing thing to our attention.

I sincerely recommend you send feedback via File > Feedback within Word. How do I give feedback on Microsoft 365? - Microsoft Support

Feedback submit by this way directly goes to the related team, this is the best way to let the developers know your requirements and help improve the product.

On the other hand, we will keep this thread open.

Community members who have similar experience or any workarounds are welcome to share insights and suggestions here.

Thanks for your cooperation and understanding! We hope you stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Tina | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 2

If you are the only editor of the document, you can create "fictional" users by adjusting the "User name" info at File > Options > General so that "Sales," "Marketing," etc. are recognized by Word as different users and insert comments under the appropriate user name.

This rather basic solution probably will be difficult to maintain if more people than you are responsible for editing the document. (And if comments have already been added to the document, you will have to delete them and add them back under the appropriate user names, which obviously may be more work than you can make time for.)